READING WOMEN: HOW THE GREAT BOOKS OF FEMINISM CHANGED MY LIFE (PUBLICAFFAIRS, 2011)
In READING WOMEN: HOW THE GREAT BOOKS OF FEMINISM CHANGED MY LIFE (PublicAffairs, 2011), Stephanie Staal writes about feeling adrift after having a child. She looks to the feminist books from her undergraduate years as possible markers on a map so that she might trace how she came to the place she finds herself the first few years of her daughter’s life. Some critics complain the text is another “woe is me, motherhood is hard” book. While memoir is an apt description of READING WOMEN, Staal’s use of feminist literature grounds her book and allows her to ask important socio-cultural questions about the intersection of feminism and motherhood.
Staal doesn’t necessarily provide answers, other than what worked for her situation. This may frustrate readers who hope that the book will be a crash course in feminist literary theory along with a prescription for how to solve their own identity crisis, balance their own family and work lives, or improve communication within their marriages. What Staal does offer is a look at upper middle class marriage and motherhood with a feminist lens. Some criticize her for this, with reviewers, both lay and professional, claiming that Staal writes from a position of privilege. Since this is what she knows and lives, I say, “Why not?” No matter where one falls along the socio-economic curve, all families face housework and childcare issues. Staal never claims her goal is to solve the work-life balance of every socio-economic class. Rather, READING WOMEN is an example of feminism applied to the modern roles of wife and mother. The book is at its best when Staal tells us a little of the background of some of the feminist authors, showing that what they wrote and how they lived was often at odds. We then see that “theory” and “lived experience” often have a chasm between them over which sometimes only the narrowest of bridges may be constructed.
Regardless of income level, there is often marital strife about the division of labor where household chores and childcare are concerned. I’m not sure why, exactly, yet the burden of the household and childcare seems to be placed entirely on women by society. Just as Staal indicates in READING WOMEN, I, too, find that people view men’s performance of housework as a “gift.” Any childcare done by men earns “points” in some mysterious game, while a woman’s care of children goes unnoticed, assumed and expected. I wish I had that proverbial nickel for every time I’ve been told how “lucky” I am to have a husband who will “babysit.” All the hairs stand up on the back of my neck and I repress the urge to scream, “It’s not babysitting unless the kids he’s watching are not ours!” Caring for our friend’s son is babysitting, caring for our children is parenting. Period. It is this attitude, most often stated by women, that runs counter to feminism. My husband has never said or considered his solo care of our children as anything but his duty as a father and as parenting. He, too, bristles at the mention of men “babysitting” their own children. At work, he actually corrects male co-workers who claim they can’t do one thing or another over the weekend or at night because they are “babysitting.” This issue could be solved easily if both men and women stopped referring to childcare by fathers as babysitting and started seeing it for what it is and should be: shared parenting. The children are yours together, thus their care is performed by both of you.
To me, this all comes down to communication within a marriage. It comes from communication and interactions that happen while you’re dating, actually. It comes from talking about household chores, children, childcare and continuing to talk about these things as changes occur throughout life. A couple may start out with the husband commuting an hour to work each way every day, while the wife paints in her in-home studio, loves to cook and takes advantage of crockpot meals she can fix and ignore. Years later, a baby comes along. Her art is selling like hotcakes and his work is almost costing the family with his reduced salary in the recession and with the commute. Maybe it’s time for him to work part time or take on more childcare so she can pursue her career, which will support the family. Or, for another similar family, they now have a four-year-old who will eat nothing made in a crockpot, and the father telecommutes while the mother has been offered a position teaching art at a local college. Should all the meals still fall on her shoulders? As circumstances change, each person needs to take on new roles or alter old ones. This cannot happen without discussion. An egalitarian marriage cannot happen without women and men talking about what is and isn’t working, and adapting to change together through open, honest communication.
So, what do feminist texts have to tell us about being married or having children? It seems, not much. For the most part, it seems feminism has claimed marriage and motherhood as the downfall of women and feminist action. However, I can’t help but believe that without motherhood, feminism fails and that it is only through motherhood that feminism can truly thrive. We must raise daughters who use their voices, who are articulate about their thoughts and feelings and who can see the larger picture, the social situation in which they find themselves throughout life. We must raise sons who respect and realize the roles women might assume. We must raise sons who do not babysit, but rather father their children, sons for whom we do not always do laundry, but rather we teach to do laundry. We must teach our sons to wash the floor and cook in the spirit of self-care and care for their families, not as if they are doing a favor for a woman. Staal dedicates READING WOMEN to her daughter. I think she does so in the hope that the book will help begin a conversation and instill an awareness that makes her daughter’s life a little less confusing should she choose motherhood as part of her future. The first step toward that just may be that we no longer “read women” or ask our spouses to “read us” as women. Instead, we should take what we read from feminist writers and open our lines of communication with ourselves, our spouses, our children and other women.
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